Jimmy Fallon To Replace Jay Leno Next Season?

Jimmy Fallon could replace Jay Leno by next year: Report

Image Credit: Kevork Djansezian/NBC

Jimmy Fallon might do what Conan O’Brien attempted to do back in 2010: Replace Jay Leno in the coveted Tonight Show seat.According to a report by The Hollywood Reporter, NBC is planning to announce Leno’s retirement as soon as this May, with the change going in effect in time for the 2014 TV season. Leno’s replacement at 11:35, sources say, will almost surely be Jimmy Fallon, who’s been helming the 12:35 Late Night hour. NBC has denied the story, while a rep for Leno said “we do not speculate on rumor.”Of course, we’ve heard this before. A few years back, Leno stepped down to give the spot to O’Brien — and we all know how that worked out. But the landscape has shifted since then — most notably thanks to the youthful Jimmy Kimmel Live, which ABC recently slated as The Tonight Show‘s direct competitor. Beyond that, whispers of Letterman’s retirement (his contract is up in 2014) have been turning into soft murmurs. A move by NBC to install Fallon in the 62-year old Leno’s spot would pit the two Jimmys against one another for the ever-important target demo.What about you, reader — are you looking forward to a potential Jimmy vs. Jimmy late-night, or do you prefer your current Jay-Dave spectrum? Is there someone else you’d prefer to replace Jay? Or do you just opt for the Daily Show-Colbert Report hour anyway? Sound off in the comments!Jimmy Fallon in, Jay Leno out? NBC weighs move next season: Report | Inside TV | EW.com

Really, NBC is notorious for this shit...stringing along their Late Night guys and then screwing them in the ass when the time comes. First Letterman, then Conan. I'd much rather see Jimmy take over Letterman's spot at CBS (if of course, Dave really wants to retire) and leave NBC in the lurch. Which is probably why they're trying to lock him in now.

NBC also said he will be succeeded, as expected, by Jimmy Fallon, 38, once Leno finishes out his contract in spring 2014. The show will also return to New York's 30 Rock. Johnny Carson had moved the show, which first premiered in 1954 (from Manhattan), west in 1972.

"Congratulations, Jimmy. I hope you're as lucky as me and hold on to the job until you're the old guy," Leno said in a statement released by NBC. "If you need me, I'll be at the garage." (Leno has an enviable classic car collection.)

Responded Fallon: "I'm really excited to host a show that starts today instead of tomorrow."

"Jay Leno is an entertainment icon, making millions of people laugh every weeknight for more than 20 years," Steve Burke, CEO of NBC Universal, said in a statement. "His long reign as the highest-rated late-night host is a testament to his work ethic and dedication to his viewers and to NBC."

I've been hearing this for months. Howard Stern talks about it almost daily. Howard hates Jay with a fiery fucking passion and laughs about NBC ousting the guy when he's fucking ratings gold...

ETA: "From Studio 6B in Rockefeller Center, New York presents a provision in its tentative state budget to keep Jimmy Fallon around as host of TheTonight Show!"
Okay, so that's not how Gov. Andrew Cuomo presented it. But that's the gist of what's happening. Indeed, the New York Daily News has learned of a weirdly specific proposed tax credit in the state budget for "a talk or variety program that filmed at least five seasons outside the state prior to its first relocated season in New York," with the requirement that it films in front of a studio audience of at least 200 people and has "an annual production budget of at least $30 million."
Paired with the rumor that NBC is planning to name Fallon as Jay Leno's successor in 2014, it certainly looks like a "Jimmy Fallon tax credit," as the Daily News calls it. According to the New York Times, Cuomo has denied that the tax credit — which equals 30 percent of production costs — was written specifically for TheTonight Show, but instead is "simply an effort to expand the existing tax break."
The Hollywood Reporter's Jordan Zakarin explains:
[T]he state already gives tax credits to shows and films being made in New York, but as of now, they have to have started up in the state -- think 30 Rock, Girls, or The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which is slated to become the largest film ever produced in the city. The tweak in the new budget would make credits available to a show that was coming from out of state, and Tonight has been based in California since 1972. [The Hollywood Reporter]
While NBC has confirmed that it's building a new studio in New York for Fallon, the network has remained mum over whether it's planning to move TheTonight Show there, according to the Los Angeles Times.
As for why New York would want to keep Fallon and his Neil Young impression in the city, the state claims that "since 2004 the New York State Film Production Credit program has attracted 665 film and television projects, generating $10.1 billion in economic activity for New York state." Earlier this month, however, the The Syracuse Post-Standard questioned "the wisdom of giving taxpayer money to finance shows that probably would not have left New York," pointing out that an institution like Saturday Night Live wouldn't leave New York City anyway. So why give it a tax break?
State Sen. Michael Gianaris defended the program to the Post-Standard, claiming that if these tax credits "did not exist, New York would stand to lose thousands of jobs and billions of dollars."
No word yet if California is putting together a tax credit for when NBC inevitably changes its mind, fires Jimmy Fallon after an all-too-brief Tonight Show tenure, and puts Jay Leno back on the air in Burbank.